The Whole Point

Ezra points at things now. He points at his reflection in the mirror, at me, at the bowl of chopped-up meatballs that I am not doling out fast enough, dammit. Jason walks into the room and point! Pointpointpoint! Today I asked him if he wanted a nap or to go downstairs and play, pointing at each option (perhaps pointing EXTRA JAZZHANDS EMPHATICALLY at his crib), and after pondering his choices he pointed at option C, a teetering pile of empty diaper boxes.

Noah...didn't point at things. He didn't use many gestures at all, for a long time, and when the words never came and our doctor recommended sign language to get us over the communication hurdle, I was doubtful. When he picked up dozens of signs practically overnight, I was shocked. And mortified, because my preconceived ideas about baby sign language (i.e., only for the crazy overachieving competimommies, probably bullshit, why would he talk if he can just siiiiign, etc.) had denied him something important. It was a tremendously humbling moment, the first of many.

I hate that I do this, by the way, the framing everything Ezra does in the context of Noah. It's so mercilessly unfair to them both, comparing and contrasting everything from eating habits (point goes to Ez) to attention span (point goes to Noah). Noah danced earlier, cuddled more, was more intensely focused on figuring out how things worked rather than just what sounds things make when you bang them together. Ezra is more adventurous, so very independent, will absolutely not sit still and play with toys...but hmmm, I don't remember Noah ever enjoying those touch-and-feel texture books so much. Ezra has a soft cuddly lovey that was love at first sight; Noah's affections for toys border on obsession but burn fast and bright and end abruptly and Pinky becomes the Piston Cup and then a toy school bus and then a plastic suitcase and currently it's a silver sleigh bell that looks like the one from The Polar Express.

(I got it for him at a craft store, and agonized for far too long over just the right shade of brown leather to use for the tie, wishing I'd brought the book with me. We wrote our first letter to Santa asking for a bell from his sleigh, and magically it arrived the very next day, even though it wasn't Christmas, can you freaking believe it.)

(The bell was actually a replacement for one of my more boneheaded fuck-ups, when I remembered we had a silver sleigh bell tree ornament and dug it out of storage and gave it to Noah without noticing that 1) it didn't actually ring [thus leading him to stand in the kitchen and say "I believe. I believe!" over and over again before shaking it again] and 2) it didn't ring because it was made of PORCELAIN, not silver, and shattered into a million pieces the next day, taking his poor little heart with it.)

(Noah occasionally hands me the new and improved bell with great ceremony. "And remember," he says, "the true spirit of Christmas is in your heart.")

Huh.

This entry started out as one thing and has ended up as another. I've lost my original point. Or at least figured out that it wasn't a point worth making.

(Top suggestions for saving a blog post gone awry from Twitter: ninjas and kitchen fire cliffhangers.)

They are different. Duh. Ridiculous amounts of duh with a side of no shit and a dollop of why are you still talking?

I don't know why. I will never stop worrying about either of them. I will never stop being their biggest cheerleader, either.

*types and deletes about four hundred different sentences in search of a point or closure or something that doesn't make me want to mompunch my momself in my momface.*

*gives up*

God, I love these kids.

 

 

Magic Bus

Today the school bus dropped a small blondish-sort of child wearing a bright yellow backpack off at our doorstep. The child watched the bus drive off for as long as he could, waving goodbye before coming inside, casually slipping his backpack off of his shoulders. He then requested his most difficult puzzle -- a 100-piece floor puzzle depicting Noah's Ark As Painted By One Of Those Holiday Inn Art Show Artists -- and quietly completed it by himself while I sat on the couch wondering when the bus would come back with MY CHILD.

You know, the one who doesn't wear a backpack. Who won't wear a backpack. 

I watched him step down the bus steps and immediately looked behind him for the aide to hand over his backpack. I was about two seconds away from making an idiot out of myself, lost-sunglasses-on-top-of-my-head style, when I finally realized OH MY GOD, HE IS WEARING HIS BACKPACK. And I stared at Noah and then back at the aide, who had simply slid the backpack onto Noah's shoulders after unbuckling him from his seat, the way he probably does with every other child on the bus.

That's the way it goes with them, always. You imagine some strange alternate universe where you say, "This is a backpack. It goes on your back. Here, like this." Aaaaand...done. Your child wears a backpack, happily taking his place with the rest of the general backpack-wearing population. But instead, YOUR child flips the fucking freak OUT when you first put the backpack on his back. And the second time. The third time, okay, quicktakeapicture, but then right back to the screaming for the fourth time, and the fifth time, when all you did was SUGGEST that he put the backpack on his back. And then maybe you give up for awhile, like, whatever, carry your backpack, there are bigger things to worry about, I AM PRETTY SURE.

You tell yourself that he'll get over it, outgrow it, whatever IT is, the wigging out over a backpack. It is the...straps? The way it feels? A balance thing? The fact that he can't see the backpack? You maybe try a messenger bag, a tote bag, but no, he wants the backpack, he just won't wear the backpack. You maybe get a little weary of it, two years later, still having to interrupt camp counselors and teachers after they offer backpack assistance to your child and are confused by his shrill refusal. "He doesn't like to wear backpacks," you whisper. Which sounds so stupid, like OF ALL THE THINGS TO MAKE A THING OVER.

And so many Things. Backpacks. New socks that don't look like his old socks. Taking that shortcut around the park. The sight of an egg cracking. Eating pizza crust-first and upside-down. No forks or spoons, except for macaroni and cheese, but just the yellow kind. This juice in That cup. Toys played with in one specific way, all the time, just. Like. So. You live with these imaginary, arbitrary rules, walking a fine line between keeping the peace and going along with the rituals...and putting your foot down, as if you can just FORCE some flexibility into him.

And then one day he steps off the school bus wearing a backpack, because the school bus aide helped him put his backpack on, completely unaware that he just performed a goddamned Christmas miracle, that he is now the personal lord and savior of a makeup-less, bra-less mother in sweatpants standing on the curb, silently wigging out about a backpack.

(Epilogue: Wrote post during nap, attempted recreation of Blessed Backpack event for photo-op afterward, no dice, despite bribe generous offer of two granola bars. Decided child wants to destroy me, sent him to room for general mouthiness, throwing backpack at dishwasher.)

(Epilogue, part 2: Just attempted to spell S-N-A-C-K out loud to husband, failed miserably, twice. "I don't think that word has an E, babe.")

And a big yellow school bus took away my little man

And then it brought him back again.

 

 

(Standard-sized preschooler-dwarfing backpack required by the school. He chose this one because of its color resemblance to YOU WILL NEVER GUESS WHAT.)

 

He made puzzles and there was paint and he ate a snack and snack was pananas and pretzels, yeah, two things! and yellow backpack and then the school bus. THE SCHOOL BUS, MOMMY. The school bus is coming back, Mommy? The school bus again tomorrow again? 

(It was a little less exciting for us this morning. Something more like your throat collapsing from the inside, once we said goodbye and watched the bus drive off, knowing that he would be met by total strangers on the other end, people we haven't even met yet, ushered into a classroom we haven't seen, the veil of our all-encompassing involvement in everything he does slowly getting drawn, as it will more and more, but oh! not yet, not yet.)

(Seeing the [totally non-short, by the way] bus come back around our corner a few hours later was MY favorite part of the day, second maybe only to seeing his delighted face in the window and hearing him gleefully shout "THAT'S MY MOMMY!" to his fellow passengers. Take THAT, stupid veil, you dickwad.)

(Incidentally, the forms? ARE STILL IN HIS BACKPACK. I am starting to think that maybe my terrible fearful fear of real and/or imaginary authority figures is something I can let go of, a little bit.)

(SCHOOL BUS SCHOOL BUS SCHOOL BUS MOMMY MOMMY I RIDE ON THE SCHOOL BUS MOMMY SCHOOL BUS)

Year of the Promise

Oh good Lord, what a day.

We had our home visit this morning with a bunch of school district people, including Noah's teacher (who I recognized from her Facebook profile, which I felt all sneaky about until I remembered how spectacularly Google-able we all are, so you know what? I'm going to just shut up, except to say that she and Noah had a nice talk about Pixar's Up, and right then and there you could SEE him fall in love with her, like, HARD).

Our home visit was supposed to start at 8:30, they arrived at 8:15, and yet I managed to get on one woman's permanent shit list because I took five extra minutes to finish brewing some coffee. Which I was making so I could offer them some coffee, but she terrified me so much that I refused to leave my seat for the entire visit, sitting upright with my hands folded, moving only to pick up an alarmingly large clump of cat hair from the baby's path but then I didn't want to get up to throw out the cat hair and so I panicked and put it in my pocket and then this OTHER woman saw me do that and gave me a weird look, like oh, God, she probably has a fingernail collection somewhere too.

(Typing that reminded me that I never took the clump of cat hair out of my pocket.)

Right off the bat they informed us that Noah's vaccination and health forms either never arrived or got lost and oh! You know how school starts on Tuesday? Yeah, don't bother sending him without those forms. I suppose I should be grateful that they did give me 15 extra minutes of heads up on that, because OH GOD, FORMS. This is something that you need to call your mother about right now and thank her for dealing with all your life, because you seriously have no idea. Doctor's offices and forms. You need the forms. The forms need the doctor. Your doctor needs $10 per page (two-sided is two pages! don't even think about it!) and five to seven goddamn business days, minimum. Twice that in "back-to-school" season, which of course runs from May to October, and then again in November to January. To just...get a form signed, same-day...unheard of. At least around here. Please don't tell me about how your pediatrician will sign forms if you happen to bump into each other at the grocery store because your town is just delightful and small and everybody hugs everybody all the time. I stopped to get cash before going to the pediatrician because I was full-on ready to bribe an office assistant into letting me bribe a nurse to sign an immunization record that I spent 20 minutes filling out myself so all it needed was one signature and a stamp.

The good news is that they agreed to sign it. Later. Six hours later, which in DoctorFormLand is like FedEx getting a package to China in 20 minutes.

Other than the forms, and the glares about the forms, and the talk about swine flu, the visit went well. Lots of questions and note-taking and no bullshitting around about what Noah needs to get out of this school year.

But...I don't know. There was something -- Jason felt it too, even though we couldn't quite articulate it -- that made us feel very, very. VERY GOOD about the decision to send Noah to an additional program. (I really need better nicknames for the preschools, by the way, other than "district preschool" and "The Preschool," especially since the capital letters are hard to say over the phone. I've been inserting dramatic pauses and using this movie-trailer-narrator voice but I think I'm annoying people. Perhaps the fake echo is too much?) Maybe the act of retelling our long history with Early Intervention put the pattern into sharper focus: Noah receives services and therapy, Noah responds remarkably to the services and therapy, services and therapy get reduced or stop altogether, Noah struggles and regresses without them, despite us kicking our own asses to do everything we've been told to do for him. Maybe it was when we were asked what our singular most major concern is, neither of us could answer, because it's not that simple. There isn't just one thing. So it makes sense that there isn't just one solution, either.

One night at the beach, Noah was having a hard time. I've already forgotten the details, the trigger. No matter how many times it happens, I can't seem to stop myself from asking "what's wrong? what's wrong, baby, what's WRONG?" Of course, he doesn't answer. He can't answer. We have a good dozen books on the subject and even they seem to mostly be guessing at the answer, at what it's like for a kid like him. Something was just WRONG, something he couldn't explain to us, something we couldn't fix.

And I stopped asking what was wrong. Instead, I made a promise. I told him it will get better and that it won't always be like this. The world will not always be so scary and strange. It won't always be like this.

I am keeping that promise. I am keeping. That. Promise.

Ephemera Thursday

Today! I accomplished nothing! Except the continued life-sustaining of two small reckless humans, the consumption of an entire package of American cheese slices, and a small handful of additions to the When You Marry gallery, covering chapters six and seven: Will Yours Be A Happy Marriage? and Wedding Plans. The former is mostly obsessed with warning the Youth Of America about the dangers of marrying someone who is...you know...different than you. Like...church-y different. Or...well, okay, we're just going to use the word "culturally" a lot and hope that you GET OUR DRIFT, OKAY?

The wedding chapter is actually rather boring, as very little has changed in the spectacularly dull world of wedding etiquette. Except for the price tag -- couples who got carried away with their wedding plans could ultimately spend close to $4,000. Take heed, Youth Of America! One day you will instill similar values in your bratty-ass kids and spend 10 times that on a sweet 16 birthday party while MTV tapes your daughter dirty dancing with someone very, VERY different than she is, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

Unfortunately Brenda does not add any commentary to these chapters, so I'm afraid we'll never know if she hoped for a Small wedding in church, home or club or an Informal chapel wedding with her beloved Zion. (Yes, yes, YES, all right, you guys are right, it's very likely Zion and not 2wn, although in my head [and my heart!] I will continue to pronounce Zion as "Two-on," because that's just how I picture him now, okay?) (Sob!)

Main gallery link here, newest pages start here.

Love and Sheared Beavers,

Amy

The Everything Is Okay Alarm

Oh. Hi! We went away there, for a little bit. Off on an exotic vacation, sampling the various regional delicacies of the Maryland shore. Like sand. And plastic beach toys.

I always go back and forth on the whole "tell Internet you're on vacation" vs. "tell Internet you're on vacation and thus your house is empty, the TV is in the living room, jewelry is upstairs, come on over and bust through a window" thing, but this time I simply plum ran out of minutes before we left and didn't get around to updating. And there was no real reliable (and non-forty-damn-dollars-for-two-days-or-something) wifi once we got there. And while I kept MEANING to use my phone to Twitter or Facebook, I just never managed to get around to it, what with all the crazy important sitting-on-my-ass that needed to be done.

Actually, there was one time, one afternoon, while both boys napped under the careful eyes of relatives ("As thanks for the essentially-free beach vacation and for making us pancakes every morning, we present: OUR BRATTY CHILDREN. They both like macaroni and need occasional watering. Bye!"), that Jason and I managed to catch some stray wifi from a nearby hotel. Since it was such a precious commodity, we used it to challenge each other to some virtual Texas Hold'em. I apologize for not alerting the Internet to my most-definite state of Alive and Okay-ness, but. Outside straight draw! You understand.

So now we're back and in various states of unpacking. I cannot find my hairbrush, something in the fridge is stinking to high holy heaven and the only news from the past few days that I am aware of is that Michele Duggar is pregnant again. (Today Show: Coming up, the Duggars are here with a surprise announcement! Jason's Aunt: Well, she can't be pregnant again, because that wouldn't be a surprise. That's like, the opposite of a surprise. Amy: True. A surprise would be, "Fuck this, we're getting a vasectomy.") Ezra is discovering new and wonderful ways to injure himself by the minute; Noah is currently wearing his underwear and nothing else, unless you count the stretchy sport headband he has decided is a belt. Right now they are playing tug-of-war with a jump rope and laughing hysterically. I see several ways that this could potentially End Badly, but I am choosing to finally update my blog instead of intervening. 

So. You know. Business as usual, priorities back where they belong and all that. Onward!